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Tear Jerker / Legion of Super-Heroes

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Original continuity/Retroboot

  • When both Krypton kids fail their initiation tests, they actually shed tears.
  • The death of Lightning Lad in Adventure Comics #304 (retold in issue #520). It had been foretold that a Legionnaire was doomed to die stopping Zaryan's invasion. Saturn Girl attempted to sacrifice herself, but Lightning Lad couldn't let her die; so he interfered and got killed in her place. In Saturn Girls' words, he "fulfilled the prophecy, saved her life and broke her heart". All Legionnaires attended his funeral.
  • Ferro Lad's sacrifice to stop the Sun-Eater. He got blown to smithereens and his death was never undone.
  • Supergirl rejoined the Legion after "The Great Darkness Saga". She was taking on missions again and rekindling her relationship with Brainiac-5. Nonetheless, a botched mission in Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 2) #315 made her believe she didn't fit in with the Legion anymore. She said goodbye to Brainiac, leaving the possibility to return someday open, and flew back to the past. Yet still she would never return. Her death hit Brainiac pretty hard.

Reboot

  • Apparition's seeming death during the battle against the White Triangle, with Ultra Boy shown cradling her smoldering corpse and sobbing her name. Thankfully, the situation turned out to be more complicated than it seemed and Apparition turned out to be Not Quite Dead, but this took a heavy toll on Ultra Boy and Winema Wazzo.
  • Monstress's death, and its demonstration of what Jan has become.

Threeboot

  • In Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes Vol 1 #30, Mon-El appears to give his life in order to put an end to the Dominators. Cosmic Boy gave his eulogy:
    Cosmic Boy: ...And he will never be forgotten. We have always said that the Legion isn't a team. It's a movement. In any system, on any world in known space, anyone who is willing to fight for change is welcome to call himself a legionnaire. At last count, we numbered over a quarter of a million. And Mon-El was still the bravest of us all.
  • Just about everything Brainiac 5 went through after Dream Girl died.
    Brainiac 5: I'm not smart enough.
  • Lightning Lad breaking up with Saturn Girl after she confesses to cheating on him with Ultra Boy, just because he was too busy to pay attention to her.

Retroboot

  • In the Justice League/Justice Society crossover "The Lightning Saga" Superman recounts how he and other five Legionnaires volunteered to sacrifice their lives in exchange for bringing Lightning Lad back. His teammates are appalled, in special Bruce.
    Batman: You were kids.
    Superman: No, Batman. We were Legion.
  • Sensor Girl starts crying as she explains to Superman that she volunteered to potentially sacrifice herself to accomplish whatever the Legion was trying to do, simply because she doesn't want Karate Kid to die again. Unfortunately for her, Karate Kid would end up dying later on in Countdown to Final Crisis.
  • How completely worn out the founders are by the time of Legion of 3 Worlds after the humiliation and degradation they've endured thanks to the Justice League of Earth's human supremacist movement destroying almost everything they've built since they were teenagers. Saturn Girl's lost her spine as she tries to play peacemaker between Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad's anger is so bad he's been screaming at both his wife and his best friend, and Cosmic Boy's acting like a self-righteous martyr talking about how hard it is to be the leader so the other founders don't have to be.
  • Also: At the end of Legion of Three Worlds, even though they never even knew her, the Retroboot Legion erects a memorial for Monstress at their headquarters. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it thing, but very emotionally satisfying.
  • The Retroboot retroactively makes the Glorithverse Legion as a whole even more depressing when taking into consideration that those Legionnaires were the ones who had their friendship with Superboy tainted thanks to the Time Trapper convincing them that he created Superboy. The reason their timeline was so horrible was because the Legion fell apart as it did, simply because the Trapper successfully poisoned their memories of their inspiration. Whereas the Retroboot Legionnaires saw through the lies and never had their memories of Superboy tainted by what their worst enemy tried to do.


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